Sen. Tom Cotton is a monster. He characterized trying to survive while thrown into the ocean as "trying to flip a boat loaded with drugs bound for United States back over so they could stay in the fight." www.militarytimes.com/news/pentago...

There are militarists who damn Trump as a "draft dodger." Anyone who condemns the use of legal means to avoid being shipped to Vietnam is no ally of mine.

Pete Hegseth is unfit to serve as our Secretary of Defense. Our troops and the American people need a leader who will take responsibility and honor our Constitution.

The walkway at the library was a bit slippery, so as I saw someone getting out of a car, I said, "Careful for ice." She replied. "I know. It's out there, waiting to grab us." I thought a moment about what she'd said and answered, "That, too." #ICE

People in New Hampshire are doing what they can to protect people from #ICE, in spite of Kelly Ayotte's attempts at intimidation. garymcgath.com/anti-ice-new... #NewHampshire

"Still in the fight," in Newspeak, means "We haven't managed to kill them all yet." A massacre of unarmed people is not a "fight." abcnews.go.com/Politics/adm...

Apple keeps spamming my iPad Podcasts app with a hack podcast called "SEO 101." It reminds me of the time they dumped a U2 album on everyone's device and made it impossible to remove. #Apple

SMOF News, volume 5, issue 14: A few annoyances about convention information, and news in brief. smofnews.substack.com/p/smof-news-...

December 4 will be the last Bandcamp Friday of 2025. When you buy from Bandcamp on that day, all the money except payment processing fees goes to the artist.

Just finished listening to Mozart's 39th Symphony and thinking about how little airplay it gets compared to the others of the final four. Maybe it's just too cheerful for our times?

Removing Hegseth should be an uncontroversial action, but the few people with the courage to start the process are smeared as "rogues." www.axios.com/2025/12/01/p...

When members of the Trump gang make anonymous threats against you, you know you've got them scared. granitepostnews.com/2025/11/25/g... @goodlander.house.gov

I was in this same spot this morning taking pictures of ICE and just missed this arrest. ICE and CBP have been running all over the Upper Keys for the past few weeks.

Mel Brooks' _All About Me_ is a real pleasure to read. I don't know if he used a ghostwriter (he's a pro writer, so he may not have needed one), but it comes across as very sincere.

Worst DuckDuckGo search rewrite yet: Searched for "Dilbert paid to watch porn," trying to find an old cartoon in which Wally said he nearly got that as part of his job. DuckDuckGo: "Not many results contain 'paid'", pretended I didn't specify that term. You can imagine the results.

An interesting way to respond to governmental brutality. It might have been more to the point if the Three Wise Men were the ones who'd been disappeared. www.boston.com/news/local-n...

Envy, poison and an unfinished Requiem As a new serialisation of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus hits our screens later this month, what’s the real story behind Mozart and Salieri? ✍️ Mark Pullinger bachtrack.com/feature-amad...

Every time I hear about the "All Borg Symphony Orchestra," I get a disturbing mental image.

New ICE data available today prove that DHS lied in response to my report last week, showing that over 70% of people booked into ICE custody had no criminal convictions, and just 5% had violent criminal convictions. DHS will lie about anything... www.cato.org/blog/new-dat...

Wrote to @repchrispappas.bsky.social that Hegseth needs to be removed. Given Pappas's utter cowardice, I don't expect he'll do anything, but I made the effort.

The Trump administration’s deportation machine has its claws in the Granite State and we, alongside state and federal lawmakers, must reject and resist its attempts to harm our immigrant communities. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/12/01/metro/nh-ice-immigration-detainees-doubled/

In a saner America, Trump and Hegseth would be facing criminal charges. garymcgath.com/american-mur...

"The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones."

What we saw of Pete Hegseth when he appeared before the House Armed Services Committee back in June stands today: he is unfit to serve as America’s Secretary of Defense. Time to resign.

ICE abductees in Burlington, MA sleep without even mats and get inadequate food. www.boston.com/news/local-n... #ICE #Massachusetts

The crimes of the Trump administration include premeditated murder and death threats against elected officials. garymcgath.com/american-mur...

Democracy is a means, not a good in itself. "We have you outnumbered" is not a moral argument.

As usual, when the first snow falls, everyone's forgotten how to drive. www.nbcboston.com/news/local/n... #NewHampshire

In memoriam: Leslie Fish. garymcgath.com/memoriam-les... #filk

Unpopular musical opinion: Where Beethoven wrote "a tempo" near the end of the 1st movement of the 9th Symphony, he meant it. It's a juggernaut, not a funeral march. Toscanini did it that way. #Beethoven

Leslie Fish—filksinger, quasi-MAGA ex-Wobbly, Robert Anton Wilson's dope dealer when he lived in Chicago—has passed away. The one conversation I ever had with her was 20 years ago, when I interviewed her for the obituary of Mary Frohman, a woman she'd been involved with long ago. So here that is.

"The Freshman" is now my favorite Harold Lloyd movie. "Safety Last" has an iconic scene, but I don't like the protagonist.

"The deliberate killing of survivors at sea represents one of the most clearly defined war crimes in international humanitarian law." www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops... #hegseth

Senator Kelly is correct. Plus a Public Service Announcement: KEY section of Department of Defense's Law of War Manual is 18.3.2.1. The VERY rule on the "requirement" to refuse illegal orders gives as its paradigmatic example of what is "clearly illegal: "orders to fire upon the shipwrecked."

A protest that targets innocent bystanders is stupid. abcnews.go.com/US/protester...

I keep running into the attitude that "Anyone who differs from my views is an adherent of the one and only other political camp." And you wonder why that other political camp has grown so popular.

Just got word from Eli Goldberg that Leslie Fish has died.😞

Karoline Leavitt is utterly indifferent to ICE's grabbing her nephew's mother. The niece shares her unusual last name with a neighbor of mine, and I live in Leavitt's part of NH, so they may be related. I don't know more yet. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/26/m...

The best way to keep up with the news is an old-fashioned RSS feed. I use Leaf, one of many options. Gather feeds from a variety of sites on local, national, and world news. Control stays with you, not with a social media site.

Capitalize all skin colors or none. I don't care which. Just be consistent.

And here's another government crime for your Black Friday—this time it's straight-up murder. (The next time one of those disingenuous assholes does their "What 'illegal orders' could you possibly be thinking of?" act, you can send them this.)

ICE thugs accost woman, do their papers-please secret-police routine, claim falsely that her ID is fake, refuse to make a call to confirm it, and then, when she tries to make the call herself, try to seize her phone. And she's…Native American.

I now have 500 followers, and that's after blocking obvious fakes. Thank you!

Time for Debussy's "La Cathédrale Engloutie." www.dailysabah.com/life/religio...

“The issue here was, ‘If it bleeds it leads,’ and I felt as though we were prioritizing breaking news that we didn’t have a lot of information on over stories that we had been working on for a while.” www.boston.com/news/the-bos...

This is the best and most important video I've put on YouTube, but viewership has dropped off after a strong start. All people can be judging it by before viewing is the title, thumbnail, and description, so I've revamped those. I hope it helps. www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-Oa... #YouTube #immigration

To Gov. Abbott, expressing views he disapproves of is "terrorism." www.thefire.org/news/abbotts... #Texas #CAIR

Chicago Tribune: Evanston police bodycams show chaos after Halloween clash between Border Patrol agents and community https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/28/evanston-halloween-border-patrol-video/